Border Patrol: Despite Alejandro Mayorkas’ claims, 60% of migrants being released into U.S. communities
Despite claims made by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the majority of those entering the U.S. illegally are not being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the head of the Border Patrol union, Brandon Judd, told The Center Square. Mayorkas, who traveled to Del Rio, Texas, where nearly 15,000 Haitian migrants gathered this past week, warned illegal immigrants at a news conference, “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life.” Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that DHS, Border Patrol, ICE, and the U.S. Coast Guard were moving individuals from Del Rio to other processing locations in order to take individuals into custody, process them and remove them from the country. It added that DHS was securing additional transportation to accelerate the pace and increase the capacity of removal flights to Haiti and other destinations in the hemisphere within the next 72 hours. But the agency hasn’t confirmed how many flights and how many Haitians have been deported. A few days later, at another news conference in Del Rio on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, when asked about the Biden administration’s deportation flight plans, said, “They have shown no capability of being able to process these migrants by the end of this week. The only thing they’ve shown is an incapability of dealing with this crisis, candidly, in a way they pretend it doesn’t even exist. And we’re here to tell you it exists.” The Associated Press reported that Haitians have been released on a “very, very large scale” in recent days, with one official estimating the number of those releases is in the thousands. “The first three [deportation] flights that went to Haiti included family units” who were deported, Judd said. But deportations are on a case-by-case basis, he added, and inconsistent. For example, “if the flights focus on deporting people to Haiti, the flights to Guatemala stop, and those people are released,” he said. “So, all you’re doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. You’re shifting resources to handle one segment, and you’re releasing the other segment. Not all the people from Haiti are being flown back; not all the people are being expelled from under Title 42. A good number of them are, in fact, being released with an NTA (Notice to Appear) or NTR (Notice to Return),” notices related to the immigration court process. Border Patrol agents make official arrests and transfer individuals to ICE facilities. ICE then determines whether they are released with an order to reappear for court hearings to go through the process to remain in the U.S. or be deported. Haitians already processed and released into the community were observed boarding buses at the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition in Del Rio. Roughly 50-60 Haitians at a time boarded a large commercial charter bus, and smaller groups were shuttled in a grey rundown minivan to the local bus station. With brown envelopes in hand, a mix of families and individuals also carried with them food, cash, and papers to help them reach their next destination. When asked where the bus was going, the first stop was San Antonio, with a final destination of Houston, The Center Square was told. Officials wouldn’t confirm if the Haitians were boarding planes to another destination or if San Antonio or Houston were their final destinations. This group of Haitians had already been processed by Border Patrol and released into the general population. Meanwhile, a steady flow of people continued to cross the Rio Grand River farther upstream from the bridge, crossing onto private property on a heavily trafficked area on Vega Verde, where Texas Department of Public Safety officers were waiting to detain them and call Border Patrol for pickup. DHS has also been busing Haitians to El Paso, Laredo, and cities in the Rio Grande Valley for processing, also adding them to flights to Tucson, Arizona, the Associated Press reported. Judd said of the roughly 200,000 apprehensions that Border Patrol makes, “they are probably dealing with 120,000 people because sometimes the same person or people are apprehended more than once. Of those, it’s right about 60-68 percent are being released [into the community] with NTAs. The vast majority are not being expelled or deported. The majority are being released into the United States.” When asked if this ratio applied to Haitians under the Del Rio Bridge, he said, “If we go off, historically speaking, the majority of the ones under the bridge will be released.” But this number can shift depending on which segment of the population ICE chooses to deport, he added. ICE “can say we’re going to send all the Haitians back, but then we’re going to release all the other people from another country. Or we can release the Haitians.” In response to being asked if there’s consistency in this process, he replied, “Zero consistency.” Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor
U.S. officials defend expulsion of Haitians from Texas town
More than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants have been removed from an encampment at a Texas border town, U.S. officials said Monday as they defended a strong response that included immediately expelling migrants to their impoverished Caribbean country and using horse patrols to stop them from entering the town. Calling it a “challenging and heartbreaking situation,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a stark warning: “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned. Your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life.” Mayorkas and Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said they would look into agents on horseback using what appeared to be whips and their horses to push back migrants at the river between Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, and Del Rio, Texas, where thousands of migrants remain camped around a bridge. Both officials said they saw nothing apparently wrong based on the widely seen photos and video. Mayorkas said agents use long reins, not whips, to control their horses. Ortiz, the former chief of the Del Rio sector, said it can be confusing to distinguish between migrants and smugglers as people move back and forth near the river. The chief said he would investigate to make sure there was no “unacceptable” actions by the agents. Mayorkas said 600 Homeland Security employees, including from the Coast Guard, have been brought to Del Rio, a city of about 35,000 people roughly 145 miles (230 kilometers) west of San Antonio. He said he has asked the Defense Department for help in what may be one of the swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants and refugees from the United States in decades. He also said the U.S. would increase the pace and capacity of flights to Haiti and other countries in the hemisphere. The number of migrants at the bridge peaked at 14,872 on Saturday, said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union that represents agents. Migrants in the camp are not in custody until they are put on buses, and “as long as they do not try to further their entrance into the United States, they’re free to go back and forth to Mexico,” Judd said Monday. Word of expulsion flights spread rapidly through the camp on Sunday, but few have turned back to Mexico, he said. “We’re achieving our goals; we’re getting there and getting to a point where we can manage the population here,” said Ortiz, who blamed the surge on smugglers who spread misinformation. “We are already seeing a quickly diminished (population) and will continue to see that over the coming days.” Mexico also said it would expel Haitian migrants and began busing them from Ciudad Acuña Sunday evening, according to Luis Angel Urraza, president of the local chamber of commerce. He said he saw the first two buses leave from in front of his restaurant with about 90 people aboard. “There isn’t room for them in the city anymore; we can’t help them anymore,” he said. Mexico’s immigration agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But a federal official told The Associated Press on Sunday that the plan was to take the migrants to Monterrey, in northern Mexico, and Tapachula, in the south, with flights to Haiti from those cities to begin in coming days. The rapid expulsions were made possible by a pandemic-related authority adopted by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 that allows for migrants to be immediately removed from the country without an opportunity to seek asylum. President Joe Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the order but let the rest stand. Any Haitians not expelled are subject to immigration laws, which include rights to seek asylum and other forms of humanitarian protection. Families are quickly released in the U.S. because the government cannot generally hold children. More than 320 migrants arrived in Port-au-Prince on three flights Sunday, and Haiti said six flights were expected Tuesday. The U.S. plans to begin seven expulsion flights daily on Wednesday, four to Port-au-Prince and three to Cap-Haitien, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Flights will continue to depart from San Antonio, but authorities may add El Paso, the official said. The only obvious parallel for such an expulsion without an opportunity to seek asylum was in 1992 when the Coast Guard intercepted Haitian refugees at sea, said Yael Schacher, senior U.S. advocate at Refugees International, whose doctoral studies focused on the history of U.S. asylum law. Similarly, large numbers of Mexicans have been sent home during peak years of immigration but over land and not so suddenly. Central Americans have also crossed the border in comparable numbers without being subject to mass expulsion, although Mexico has agreed to accept them from the U.S. under pandemic-related authority in effect since March 2020. Mexico does not accept expelled Haitians or people of other nationalities outside of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In Mexico, local authorities of border municipalities have asked for help from state and federal authorities. Claudio Bres, the mayor in Piedras Negras, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Ciudad Acuña, told local media that the official agreement is to turn back all the buses with migrants to prevent them from reaching the border. He said that last weekend around 70 buses passed through his town. Haitians have been migrating to the U.S. in large numbers from South America for several years, many having left their Caribbean nation after a devastating 2010 earthquake. After jobs dried up from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, many made the dangerous trek by foot, bus, and car to the U.S. border, including through the infamous Darien Gap, a Panamanian jungle. Some of the migrants at the Del Rio camp said the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti and the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse make them afraid to return to a country that seems more unstable than when they left. “In Haiti, there is no security,” said Fabricio Jean, a 38-year-old
Donald Trump calls for border legislation using ‘nuclear option’
President Donald Trump demanded Monday that Congress pass new border legislation using the “Nuclear Option if necessary” to muscle it through the Senate — a drastic change in rules the Republican leader has previously dismissed. Trump tweeted that the U.S. must build a border wall, but argued that “Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!” He also said that a deal to help “Dreamer” immigrants is “dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act.” Trump has previously called for the “nuclear option” — changing Senate rules to end the filibuster. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has dismissed that option in the past, saying Republicans will welcome the filibuster if they return to being the Senate minority. The White House did not immediately answer questions about Trump’s tweets. The $1.3 trillion funding package Congress passed last month included $1.6 billion in border wall spending. But much of that money can only be used to repair existing segments, not build new sections. Congress also put restrictions on the types of barriers that can be built. Trump began tweeting over the weekend on immigration from Florida, threatening to pull out of a free trade agreement with Mexico unless it does more to stop people from crossing into the U.S. The U.S., Canada and Mexico are participating in tense negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement at Trump’s insistence. He also claimed that people are flowing over the border “trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!” It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to when he said people are coming to take advantage of the program Former President Barack Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to provide temporary protection and work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally after being brought here as children. The Obama administration allowed signups during a set period of time, and the program is closed to new entrants. Trump ended the program last year, but gave Congress six months to pass legislation enshrining it. A deal has so far proved elusive and Trump has blamed Democrats. The Department of Homeland Security is not issuing new permits, though existing ones can be renewed. Proposed DACA deals crafted by lawmakers and rejected by Trump also were not open to new participants. Trump did not explain what he meant when questioned by reporters as he entered the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea for an Easter Sunday service on Sunday, but again blamed Democrats for failing to protect the “Dreamers.” “The Democrats have really let them down,” he added during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, adding: “It’s a shame.” Trump’s comments also ignore the fact that the DACA solution he proposed mustered only 39 votes in the Senate, not enough to pass even if the Senate did approve the nuclear option. Meanwhile, the bipartisan option the White House vigorously lobbied against did gain a majority of votes, but fell six votes shy of the 60 needed to advance under Senate rules. Trump promised during the 2016 presidential campaign to build a Southern border wall to stop illegal immigration and drugs from Mexico, but Congress has frustrated him by not moving as quickly as he wants to provide money for construction. The president also complained on Twitter that border patrol agents can’t do their jobs properly because of “ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws” that allow people caught for being in the country illegally to be released while they await a hearing before a federal immigration judge. Trump tweeted that the situation is “Getting more dangerous” and “Caravans” are coming. The president’s tweets came after Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” reported early Sunday on what it said is a group of 1,200 immigrants, mostly from Honduras, headed to the U.S. About 1,100 migrants, many from Honduras, have been marching in a caravan along roadsides and train tracks in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca. These “Stations of the Cross” migrant caravans have been held in southern Mexico for at least the last five years. They began as short processions of migrants, some dressed in biblical garb and carrying crosses, as an Easter-season protest against the kidnappings, extortion, beatings and killings suffered by many Central American migrants as they cross Mexico. Individuals in the caravans often try to reach the U.S. border, but usually not as part of the caravan. The caravans usually don’t proceed much farther north than the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. The current march is scheduled to end this month with a conference on migration issues in the central Mexican state of Puebla, east of Mexico City. The Fox headline was “Caravan of illegal immigrants headed to U.S.” The president is known to watch the cable TV program in the morning. Brandon Judd, leader of the union representing border patrol agents, predicted on “Fox & Friends” that those in the caravan would create havoc and chaos in the U.S. as they wait for what he described as immigration reform. Judd also said Congress needs to pass tougher laws, an idea Trump appeared to echo, and create more bed space for immigration authorities to house people. Mexico routinely stops and deports undocumented Central Americans, sometimes in numbers that rival those of the United States. Deportations of foreigners dropped from 176,726 in 2015 to 76,433 in 2017, in part because fewer were believed to have come to Mexico, and more were requesting asylum in Mexico. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
